symbio

Heath monitoring & communication designed for in-home caregivers.

Research

Buckingham South

Assisted Living Facility

Although we wanted to focus on designing for in-home care, we decided to visit an assisted living in Savannah, GA to understand how they care for their residents. We wanted to see if there was anything they do in a professional care environment that could be brought into home care.

In-Home Visits

Caretaker and Loved One

We were able to interview and observe an in-home, untrained caretaker to gain insights into the day-to-day life of a caretaker and their patient. This was crucial in our research and increased our understanding of the tasks and management it takes to care for a loved one.

Caretaker Interviews

Former and Current Caretakers

Throughout our research we conducted interviews with multiple caretakers to learn more about their experience. These interviews helped us understand that everyone has a different experience as a caretaker and each loved one or patient has different needs to try to meet.

Survey

Caretaker Information

In order to get as much information as possible from caretakers, we sent out a survey to several caretaker support groups to better understand our potential users. We received a lot of helpful responses as well as quantifiable data to use to design a product that satisfied the needs of the majority of our future users.

"It's hard to leave him alone. I'm worried the whole time I'm gone."

- Interviewee

Key Insights

Anxiety does not go away for caretakers, even when there is another person (CNA or RN) present

Most caretakers do not understand the amount of work that comes with taking on a caring role

Communication between other caretakers as well as the patient/loved one is essential in providing proper care

It is difficult for an unprofessional caretaker to understand if they are doing the right thing when caring for a loved one

Ideation

Codebook

Stakeholder Map

In order to understand who we are designing for, we wanted to understand our stakeholders and how they communicate between one another and with the patient or loved one. This stakeholder map includes each person that is involved in caring for the patient and how they communicate with the patient as well as the other caretakers involved.

How Might We?

Improve in-home care experiences for caretakers.

Concept

Vitals

Symbio is an easy to use healthcare solution designed for in-home caretakers to provide peace of mind while caring for a loved one.

With its real-time telemonitoring system from a discrete Symbio patch and bed sensor, Symbio will notify users when a vital sign is out of normal range, and predict bowel movements to help prevent accidents. Symbio encourages communication between family caregivers and nurses to work more effectively as a team.

The homepage uses a simple color coded system to let caregivers know if anything goes wrong with a glance.

Sensing System

The Symbio monitoring kit includes a reusable patch with replacement contacts and a bed monitor.

The bed monitor can track sleep, audio and motion while the skin patch records temperature, heart rate and detect falls. With its ultrasonic sensors, Symbio's patch can also predict bladder and bowel movements to help prevent accidents.

The patch contains a battery that can be charged wirelessly through the bed monitor, which remains plugged into a wall.

Shared Management

Managing all the aspects of caregiving are accomplished through shared documents that nurse assistants and medical professionals can be granted access to. Symbio encourages effective and continuous communication through making nurse notes and logs beneficial to the family caregiver.

To make on-boarding as easy as possible. Symbio has a friendly chatbot feature for entering new medications, setting reminders and entering conditions.

Link for Nurses

Symbio Link provides nurses with the ability to clock hours, check on patient vitals, and create a detailed log of what was completed during their visit.

Note-taking is legally compliant, digitally signed, and includes convenient shortcuts.